Instead of brackets, gods

I almost forgot to do today's daily post, which is not a good start to my daily posting regimen. But better late than never, I guess.

No funny pictures today. Just words.

***

Today I'll just try to focus my previous blog's topic a little better. So, if I'm going to use Graham as a template because I share her interest in mind's relationship with "world," then my task is to figure out how my own philosophical/intellectual orientation would play out differently.

• I am interested not in "mind" so much as in "psyche," as the term is used by C.G. Jung and James Hillman. That is to say, as the term bleeds right into its sister-word, "soul."
• Consequently, archetypes and myth are of great importance (though I haven't figured out in what way I should use these). Graham references myths sometimes, but I want myth to play more of a foundational role.
• Mysticism, particularly my version of the Buddhist non-dual variety, is the foundation of my view. Thus, while Graham seems to imply a certain dualism between mind and world, I view mind as an extension of world. (Or vice-versa, depending on my mood.) The human psyche, since it is the world, cannot truly be alienated from the world.
• Hence, human language cannot distort "reality," because it is fully part of reality. Nature makes brain makes language, so language=nature. How can nature distort nature? How can reality not know reality? Words are made of earth and sing the earth. Language can only complicate and (further) transform reality. So, the suspicion and skepticism of language that sometimes troubles Graham (as well as a lot of other contemporary poets) is not an affliction I have.
• (That last point may be the most important; I'm more inclined to celebrate consciousness than to be anxious about it.)
• To sum up, more Jung, Hillman, Bachelard, and Trungpa, less Heidegger and Wittgenstein and etc. (Though I do like Heidegger.)
• So, instead of phenomenological brackets, gods.
• Generally, as a Buddhist and a post-Catholic, and simply by temperament, I hew to a certain ontological and epistemological optimism.

I'm really just thinking out loud here, brainstorming. What all of this translates into in terms of actual poetry, I have no friggin' idea. I'm not even sure this does have any relation to poetry. And the bullet-pointed summary I just provided is so drastically oversimplified that it is of limited usefulness. But maybe you get the idea.

***

The instructor for one of the classes I'm taking at UIC in the fall has recommended that we read Kant and Hegel on aesthetics over the summer. The prospect of reading these two kind of makes me want to throw up—especially Kant, who is not known for being an engaging stylist. This quasi-assignment actually makes me want to review my Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, both of whom are actually very readable. I am more partial to some Germans than to others. Inevitably, snooty bastard that I am, this shite will make it into my new poems. Especially Schopenhauer. He's not my Facebook profile stand-in for nothing. (And I would argue that his pessimism is actually inessential to his overall philosophy, but that's another discussion.)

***

Really my goal is to be a combination of William Blake and Susan Sontag. (Oh, Photoshop . . . )